Baseball should be a priority for ND with ACC membership
by God-Country-ND (2016-05-22 09:06:17)

I hope they have plans for a staff that can even remotely resemble what we had with Mainieri. This staff is pretty bad.


Swarbrick's hiring record isn't all that great
by MNG  (2016-05-22 09:45:15)     cannot delete  |  Edit  |  Return to Board  |  Ignore Poster   |   Highlight Poster  |   Reply to Post

The book is still out on Kelly, Aoki isn't cutting it, and neither is the women's soccer coach, Therese Romagnolo. The book is sill out with Halfpenny and women's Lax, but consider me unimpressed thus far.


As to women's lacrosse and soccer
by Nigeltufnel  (2016-05-22 17:27:26)     cannot delete  |  Edit  |  Return to Board  |  Ignore Poster   |   Highlight Poster  |   Reply to Post

I would suggest some restraint may be in order. Not that I expect my words to change your view on the issue. Those games are changing at light speed and it is hard to assess any coach without a full and informed review of a material body of work (which I know to be against your nature). I'm not sure any coach has been spared by you over the years (Jackson, Brey, McGraw etc.) . Specifically to address lacrosse and soccer:

In lax, Northwester the former leviathan of the sport was 11-10 this year and received an absolute beat down from ND in the NCAAs. Does that mean that Amato-Hiller just can't cut it anymore too? Is she a B-lister that needs to be ushered out too? Did she suddenly become a poor coach?

In soccer, Anson Dorrance (ever heard of him) has no better a record overall than does Romagnola comparing her time at ND to UNC's recent performance. Is he no longer cutting it too? Need to go? Too long in the tooth?

I’m not saying you will be proven wrong over time but I don’t think you can really draw your conclusions from the small sample size before you especially the way the landscape for these two games is changing.

Finally I will again ask who would you have hired for either of these positions? Your panacea for any and all disappointments is "fire the coach" but there never is any suggestion of who you would hire to replace the coach or what should be done differently.


And he has yet to fire a coach he hired
by ShermanOaksND  (2016-05-22 12:28:44)     cannot delete  |  Edit  |  Return to Board  |  Ignore Poster   |   Highlight Poster  |   Reply to Post

Most ADs are reluctant to do that. Swarbrick has been AD for 8 years now. If he's not going to make a change now, I wonder if he ever will.


Not sure this is totally fair
by Domer99  (2016-05-23 10:02:24)     cannot delete  |  Edit  |  Return to Board  |  Ignore Poster   |   Highlight Poster  |   Reply to Post

Firing Debbie Brown, regardless that he didn't hire her, took a tremendous amount of initiative given her tenure and situation.

I understand the whole shame factor that one of his selected targets didn't work out, but I don't think that Jack will allow personal pride to prevent him from making a decision that's best for the sport.

There have been rumblings that Aoki is treading on unsecure ground for this year. But my best educated guess, if he's not gone this year, that his fate will be sealed by a similar type of season next year.


"A tremendous amount of initiative"?
by ShermanOaksND  (2016-05-24 18:19:13)     cannot delete  |  Edit  |  Return to Board  |  Ignore Poster   |   Highlight Poster  |   Reply to Post

Don't you think that's a tad much? The volleyball program barely had a pulse for the preceding decade. I would have expected any competent AD to have canned Brown sooner or later.

Swarbrick has many attributes, but his hiring and firing record has been underwhelming, to be totally fair.


Yep *
by Ty Webb  (2016-05-30 21:18:05)     cannot delete  |  Edit  |  Return to Board  |  Ignore Poster   |   Highlight Poster  |   Reply to Post


I don't know how I'd answer this question ...
by CJC  (2016-05-25 14:54:02)     cannot delete  |  Edit  |  Return to Board  |  Ignore Poster   |   Highlight Poster  |   Reply to Post

But which Notre Dame sports are better-positioned today than they were when Swarbrick arrived?

I'll make it easy on everybody and acknowledge that football is better off today than it was in 2009 (although that underscores one of the limitations of this exercise, since many would argue that's not good enough).

I'll also declare that both men's and women's basketball are better-positioned today than they were in 2009, even though Swarbrick inherited both coaches and they remain in place. Feel free to argue whether the improvement in those programs is due to Swarbrick, in spite of Swarbrick or neither.

Have at it.


Swarbrick was hired in the summer of 2008
by Domer99  (2016-05-26 17:40:03)     cannot delete  |  Edit  |  Return to Board  |  Ignore Poster   |   Highlight Poster  |   Reply to Post

Not sure if that changes things under your question but I'll note the following did happen since, and this is by no means necessarily trying to give him credit for the listed events:

> Arlotta stadium open in 2009;
> Compton Family arena open in 2011;
> Purcell Renovation open in 2009;
> LaBar Football Practice Fields open in fall 2008;
> Alumni Stadium open in 2009;
> Castellan Family Fencing Center open in 2012;
> Women's Rowing Indoor Facility open in 2013.

If Swarbrick (or I guess you could substitute administration) is given blame for the lack of a standalone practice facility, how does one parse credit for facilities developments in other sports?

Like I said, some of these were started or at least agreed to before Jack took over. But it is interesting to compare the facilities development that took place under his predecessor (Wadsworth too).

But coupled with the above, I think Men's lax is in a definitively better place than when Jack arrived. 1 FF appearance prior to 2010, 4 since. To your point, Corrigan was there before Jack arrived, but they certainly weren't as successful as they've been after.

Hockey has 2 Frozen 4 appearances. 1 before Jack, 1 after. But before Jack, the Irish had 3 NCAA appearances (total) and 5 since. Again, Jack didn't hire Jeff Jackson.

Men's soccer is a better program now (or at least it earned it's only national title since Swarbrick's hire). Again, not a Swarbrick hire, either.

Women's basketball is clearly a consistently elite program now, versus a very competitive one before Swarbrick.

I think there are a number of programs in better shape. I guess a more interesting question is which programs are worse. Women's soccer. Fencing? Yet, still pretty strong. Softball? But by the slightest of margins. Even baseball is slightly better (at worse neutral) than from the Schrage era.

I don't know how many sports you can say are successful in spite of him, maybe men's basketball? But even Kayo has talked about the increases in the men's operating budgets under Jack. It's an easier case to make that the athletic department is neutral to slightly better than it is to say otherwise. Where one wants to rate his impact is debatable, but I'd lean toward something in between "neither" and "due to" before I'd contemplate "in spite of."

But I am not sure these programs get better on their own. Could all of these changes happened organically? I guess? But these programs have had coaches that were at Notre Dame for a while, yet still improved later. If it were so easy, why wasn't it happening under White? Probably a lot of nuance involved in parsing this out, but good thought provoking exercise


Agree completely *
by garbageplate  (2016-05-25 09:49:07)     cannot delete  |  Edit  |  Return to Board  |  Ignore Poster   |   Highlight Poster  |   Reply to Post


And with the exception of the volleyball coach
by MNG  (2016-05-22 12:35:51)     cannot delete  |  Edit  |  Return to Board  |  Ignore Poster   |   Highlight Poster  |   Reply to Post

None of his other hires were A-listers. I think most were reaches, assuming ND's stated goal of being elite in all its sports is a serious proclamation and not just a bullshit throwaway line.


I think the difficulty hiring A-level coaches for...
by FL_Irish  (2016-05-22 16:45:34)     cannot delete  |  Edit  |  Return to Board  |  Ignore Poster   |   Highlight Poster  |   Reply to Post

...non-A level programs is underestimated. Why exactly would an A-level coach want to leave his or her spot to take a step down in program? Other than women's soccer, is there a program he's hired for recently that could reasonably command an A-level coach?

I'd say inability to indentify emerging coaches who have the potential to develop into A-level coaches is the bigger concern relative to many of ND's programs.


Swarbrick deserves little credit for hiring McLaughlin
by Melanzana  (2016-05-22 13:38:17)     cannot delete  |  Edit  |  Return to Board  |  Ignore Poster   |   Highlight Poster  |   Reply to Post

Maybe credit for getting Debbie Brown to step aside but McLaughlin always wanted to come back to Notre Dame. That was all about Notre Dame.


Sadly true
by ShermanOaksND  (2016-05-22 12:44:31)     cannot delete  |  Edit  |  Return to Board  |  Ignore Poster   |   Highlight Poster  |   Reply to Post

And that includes the football coach.